Life Sciences Commons^™

Factors Affecting Predation Of Marine Turtle Eggs By Raccoons And Ghost Crabs On Canaveral National Seashore, Fl, Justin Brown

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Changes in abundance of interactive species can have cascading, community-wide effects (Soule et al. 2003). Raccoons (Procyon lotor) prey on a competitor for marine turtle eggs, the Atlantic ghost crab (Ocypode quadrata). Conservation of marine turtles often includes managing raccoons-the most obvious egg predator-which may have broader ecological effects, and unknown effects on egg predation. Neither the relationship between raccoons and ghost crab density nor the effects of ghost crab density on egg predation are well understood. I studied raccoon-ghost crab interactions and the effects of environmental variation on their activity during the 2007 marine turtle nesting season on Canaveral …